Ruthless, Kira Blakely

A life of pain, anger, and resentment could never prepare Eli for the vision of perfection in the bookstore window.  Nina's life of Tiffany perfection could never prepare her for the dark, dangerous, feral mountain of a man across her counter.  Together they'll find a world of darkness and a path of justice that could lead them either to hell or heaven.

Nina is a pampered princess and has no idea what kind of a world is around her.  Sheltered and provided for by a man she adores, when Eli drops some information in her lap she's completely thrown and isn't sure who to believe or trust.  The mostly absent father she loves is also the monster that raised, abused, and threw away the man in front of her.  With her world falling down around her ears she finds passion and protection in Eli's arms.  What they forge through all the adversity they face is actually pretty intense and sweet.

Eli hasn't known sweet in his entire life.  He knows all about the darkness and depravity in their part of the city and he's determined to cut off the head of the snake.  When he learns that the head is his step-father he's even more motivated to cut out the cancer, with vicious intent.  His plan is derailed a bit when he discovers Nina's connection to the man.  While educating her on who the man really is and what her kingdom is built on he finds that there's something more, something deeper that draws him to her.  What he finds in Nina's arms is peace, solace, acceptance, and freedom.  He'll never give her up.

I'm not exactly impressed with Nina's vacillation but I can understand it.  I get where she was coming from but to make the decision to trust Eli and then deliberately go behind him to do what she did wasn't okay.  Sure, it progressed the plot to put her in the situation she found herself in, but what it also did was make me question her convictions, her intelligence, and her fortitude.  I'll make some allowances because she was young and terribly naive, but saying one thing and then doing another isn't something that can be blamed on youth and naivety, that's just a character flaw.

Eli really shone for me.  He was a man of convictions, honor, patience, strength, devotion, and passion.  He was committed to taking care of his neighbors with no thought to compensation.  He was given a hand and became determined to offer one of his own.  With Nina he recognizes something pure, sweet, good, and definitely sexy that could soothe his soul from all the loss and pain he's experienced.  I admired and respected this man.  The synopsis makes us think one thing about him, with what he thought was important, but there's really zero mention of those things in the story at all.  Even his geriatric neighbors could see that it wasn't true about him.  So it's slightly annoying that the blurb gives one impression only to have it be pretty much false.

The drama was suitably intense.  And there was a ton of sex.  Nothing is wrong with either of those things, but I kind of feel that the sexy times got in the way of the plot and the actual relationship building.  I believed it but couldn't really feel it, you know?  The ending was really sweet and full of healing, forgiveness, and feels.  A fitting end for a good man.

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